The Transformation of Avarice: The Radiant Unicorn

No matter how often teachers of every school and tradition repeat that the primary motive for any action is the action itself, the very necessity of performing it, in practice people most often act expecting to receive something for themselves.

At the same time, the usual “trigger” for performing such actions is, more or less, manifest envy or jealousy: a person either likes what he sees in another and thinks, “he is worse than me, so why does he have this and I do not? I am better, and therefore more deserving,” or he fears losing what he has, fearing that it will be taken from him, and so builds walls to protect his possessions. One way or another — whether in attack or defense — a person trains himself to take only those actions that he believes should multiply and preserve his possessions, whatever is meant by possessions — something material and tangible, or the possession of another person, or perhaps the possession of knowledge or skills. The drive to derive pleasure from the awareness of one’s ownership of what is valuable, of what seems important, is one of the key demonic distractors underpinning consumer society.

And, like any distractor, envy and jealousy are born of a distortion of the mind’s own striving, which in this case is the fundamental need for realization. The mind that strives to know itself through its actions, when caught in the trap of separateness and the urge to possess, begins to act not for the sake of the actions themselves but to maintain its separateness and to feed the demon of avarice.

In its “original” manifestation this pure urge to act, to know, to realize simply because the need arose — not for the sake of the result, but for doing what must be done — is traditionally expressed by the image of the Unicorn.

The image of the One-Horned Steed, an animal with expansive, active energy, is known from deep antiquity: depictions of such creatures have been found on the walls of cave temples more than four thousand years old.

This force, expressing the “restless”, active nature of mind, its striving toward self-perfection, toward unimpeded self-manifestation, has been celebrated in countless myths and legends.

In Slavic myth this activity is associated with Dazhdbog, and for the Magus efforts to awaken and master it are one of the key tasks on his Way.

The Magus strives to act with emphasis on the actions themselves, and for that he accepts the challenges the world presents and responds to them, understanding that each such challenge, each new chance, every opened opportunity is another rung on his endless Way, another link in the infinite chain of self-knowledge and self-realization. It is precisely the awareness of the infinity of the Way, the awareness of the immeasurability of the stream of realizations, that awakens the Unicorn: once the Magus clearly understands that all efforts to master anything are finite and, frankly, absurd when viewed from the perspective of infinity — he ceases to strive for finite goals, perceiving any realization only as a link, a stage, a moment on his Way. The “chastity” so prized by the Unicorn is precisely the refusal to possess, the refusal to be an owner and a victim, a renunciation of market and consumerist modes of behavior. The element of the Unicorn is air, a mobile principle that disperses smoke and fog. Therefore, awakening the Unicorn’s force in the mind means not only the mind acquiring mobility, lightness, and non-attachment, but also the “dissolving” quality of its activity. In performing any action, the Magus “dissolves” the tension that served as the impulse for that action, dispersing that unresolved energy which led to the need to complete that realization. By doing what must be done, the Magus travels his Way with ease, and the Unicorn, carrying his mind through dark forests and swamps of material attachments, proves an invaluable aid in overcoming avarice, envy, and jealousy. Unicorn Stag